1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the positioning, for cutting and folding purposes, of fabric labels for articles of clothing, shoes, hats, bags and similar articles, of the type presenting a central portion provided with at least one brand name, and two opposing lateral tails folded against the rear face of the label.
2. Prior Art
Labels are currently produced from tapes of indeterminate length, each of which comprises a succession of joined-together label portions (i.e. label portions containing the brand name and all the required elements of the label), which when separated give rise to that number of labels.
The tape is cyclically halted such that is front end lies in a cutting and folding station in which each label portion is separated from the front end of the tape and the opposing tails of the label obtained in this manner are folded along two fixed folding planes.
The tape end is positioned by stops woven into the tape between one label portion and the next. Each of these stops is moved, one at a time, to coincide with the cutting plane, and at this point the tape is halted. Here the tape is cut, and immediately afterwards the two tails of the label are folded.
However, it happens in practice that as the tape is of fabric, the length of the label portions is not constant at each point of the tape. In this respect, the weaving produces some sections in which the length of the label portions is greater than in other sections.
Hence, although the position of the cutting plane is in fixed geometrical relationship with the fixed folding axes, when the label length varies it can happen that in the final label the central portion, which carries the brand name, lies in a position eccentric to the two folding lines. This produces an undesirable or indeed unacceptable appearance.
An object of the present invention is to overcome said drawback by a method and relative system for correctly positioning the front end of the tape such that the central portion of each label lies in constant geometrical relationship with the fixed folding axes, and in particular such that the centre line of the central portion lies on the central axis at the same distance from the fixed folding axes.